30. January 2009 by admin.

I have the best committe ever. Yesterday was great, I met with everyone in my committee. It went great with everyone, they all gave me very useful feedback. My next meetings are going to be Monday at 11am, Thursday at 11am , and Thursday at 1pm, my aim is to have less DS and more me.
I am going to reformulate the research question and re-review the work of DS. I should send them to my advisor on Wednesday, but my aim is to finish that by Monday or Tuesday so I can take a day to think about what I’ve argued for without the clutter of all the stuff I’m reading
I am really enjoying this screening thing… does that make me a weirdo?

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28. January 2009 by admin.

I might be… </pointless-post-that-only-I-understand> :D  

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27. January 2009 by admin.

Speaking of balance, I’ve been up and working for four days straight, and I missed my apartment renewal deadline. Now I have to apply with everyone else on February second, and I am very unlikely to get in… fuck.

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27. January 2009 by admin.

Ok, that was a serious anticlimax… I feel “bleh” now… I’m gonna go read morphology till I fall asleep…

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26. January 2009 by admin.

I said I’d be done by Monday, and it’s Monday, and I am practically done, I’m just finalizing some thoughts in the last section I am going to send it in by 5 pm tonight.

I am proud of myself After I’m done, I am going to go home, take a long nap, then come back and read one of the articles assigned for the Syntax Seminar.  

Woohoo! :) 

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25. January 2009 by admin.

So it’s been a month or so since my last post… My first Christmas was fun - and stressful! and I spilled soup on myself… but that’s a story for another day. I actually caught that cold Tom had, and instead of having it for 2 days like him, as usual I was sick for the whole vacation… I enjoyed Lebanon a lot though, despite the cold.

I didn’t get anything done while I was in Lebanon, nothing, not a thing. With the cold, and the friends, and all the family events that came with my brother’s wedding, I forgot I even was a graduate student… I was supposed to send my advisor a summary of the stuff I had read in Tampa after we met online, which I didn’t…After I got back, I was dreading the moment I’d run into her… Technically, she didn’t give me a deadline, but it was assumed that the email was going to be sent within the next couple of days of our meeting…

Funny enough, when I did run into her, I forgot for a split second that I owed her a past overdue summary, and I greeted her with a cheerful “Hi!!!” with a big bright smile - to which she very amiably replied with a greeting. Then she followed her greeting with “what happened to that summary?” (I could have sworn my ears caught on fire that moment, I couldn’t believe I had forgotten that! I should have anticipated the question!) I think I mumbled something about going to Lebanon and that having been detrimental in the summary’s coming existence. It was quite embarrassing.

That was a Thursday, but she was busy, so we agreed to meet on the Thursday after, and she told me to send her a summary of what I’ve done before we meet. Now we’ve established above that I haven’t done anything in the two weeks I was in Lebanon. But seeing as I was already feeling ’small’ enough, I wasn’t about to let her realize that, on top of not having written a summary, I barely read anything in Lebanon other than the articles I had already read in Tampa. So I started preparing frantically until the day I met with her.The meeting went okay (I guess)… I didn’t really know what to expect, it was my first real meeting with her. So my expectations were that as long as I don’t have an asthma attack or choke on my own tongue, the meeting was going well.

The meeting was very useful for me. It gave me structure to what I’ve been doing and what I should be doing next. She showed me everything that’s wrong with what I was thinking, and then gave me what seemed to be a pep talk… She’s really nice, but frighteningly smart, which makes me nervous. I wish I wasn’t so nervous. But being nervous is good, it’s good motivation to work hard.

My deadline for what she asked me to do is Tuesday at 7:00 pm, I don’t know if she wants it by email or if she’s going to be in her office. I’m not taking chances, I’ll be done by Monday. That’s why I should stop typing this now and get back to work.

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure” (Bill Cosby)

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